adam in the world

Some Sight

2009-03-31T02:02:00.012+02:00

Augusta Atla posted this picture of a Robert Smithson (check, check, check) None-site. I like Smithson very much and the idea of the Non-site:

'The Non-site (and indoor earthwork) is a three dimensional logical picture that is bstract, yet it represents an actual site in NJ (The ine Barrens Plain). It is by this three dimensional metaphor that one site can represent another site which does not resemble it - thus the non-site'
Robert Smithson, 'The Collected Writings', p. 364

But looking at it this time, I got the feeling that I'd be much more interested in the surrounding information and documentation. About the actual place and proces. Though Smithson defines the Non-site as a 'three dimensional' 'metaphor' which 'does not resemble' the place it represents, he has not kept from adding that other layer. And that is the part I suppose I would dwell by the longest. Explore and dig out facts about the site and background. And perhaps create a world of my own. Which is something I don't feel the Non-site allows or invites me to do.

Someone who've done something like this is Christoph Niemann - an illustrator who blogs - Abstract City - for NYT. Here's how he introduces I Lego NY:

'During the cold and dark Berlin winter days, I spend a lot of time with my boys in their room. And as I look at the toys scattered on the floor, my mind inevitably wanders back to New York.'

I think there's quite a bit of Non-site in that. But what he does is more like the detailed documentation hanging next to (and is part of, of course) Smithsons piece. He takes known and less known characteristivs of New York, and describes them in Lego, through different types of representation:

Some are practical and instructional:

Elevations:

Diorama depicting a specific situation

Wellknown phenomenon:

Unlikely juxtapositions of scale and subject:

It's brilliant I think - see the rest. He lights his subject from numerous different angles. Which reminded me of something I read by Edward Tufte recently ... actually I think he said it in his review of the iPhone (worth watching):

'To clarify - add detail'

Of course - clarification might not be the goal exactly, but I like the principle. Tufte is the great guru of infographics, and I've been following some of his different advice lately. His website can be labyrinthic to explore, but is full of interesting stuff focusing on the visualiation of information. Fx. this piece about image annotation, consequenty used with the above pictures.

NBG

2009-03-22T00:15:00.001+01:00

Brown Snow

2009-03-11T22:05:00.001+01:00

The Greenlandic language (both of them?) is popularly known to contain 83 words for snow. It's a lesser known fact that in Danish you find just about as many words defining particular qualities of wet brown stuff on the ground. Sjap, sjask, smat, pludder, mudder, pløre, ælte...

Urban Communication

2009-03-11T21:31:00.000+01:00

... I think our dear municipality is trying to tell us something here ... hmm ... it makes me wonder what proces has gone before this particular piece of urban design.

It's part of the, let's say, partially succesful and hugely debated redesign of Nørrebrogade - a major Copenhagen street.

Return Of The King

2009-03-05T13:03:00.000+01:00

February, when wet heavy snow covered the city for unusually long. The Kings Garden in the center of Copenhagen. The sky looked like that 8 h. 22 min. that day. Then it got dark again. My friend The Bicycle Thief - a film reference, not an occupation. A mental state perhaps.

Testing, Testing, One, Two

2009-03-05T11:15:00.001+01:00

Juuust testing out how blogging from iPhone works.... endless new possibilities...

blublu

2008-09-19T17:26:00.008+02:00

Off to the Biennale in Venice tomorrow morning, early, early. So here's just for your pleasure a fantastic street art animation by Blu:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo. ... and I must remember to thank Mauro for the tip :) BLU is definately a new favorite.

For more on street art go to - I think - the web's top blog in that field: woostercollective.com

Beyond Architecture

2008-09-09T19:14:00.017+02:00

M FUKSAS D

As I'll be going to the Architectural Biennale in Venice in a few weeks
I was checking up on this years theme... and... I was very happily surprised:

Out There: Architecture Beyond Building, points out what should be an obvious fact: architecture is not building. Buildings are objects and the act of building leads to such objects, but architecture is something else. It is the way we think and talk about buildings, how we represent them, how we build them. This is architecture. More generally, architecture is a way of representing, shaping and perhaps even offering critical alternatives to the human-made environment.

Reading this brought me back to my first day at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art's School of Architecture. Specifically it brought me back to the very moment the introductory lecture peaked. Thit happened when the lecturer came to the rhetorical question "what is architecture?". Insterestingly it turns out that architecture is defined by just three, very precise, parameters:

1 ARCHITECTURE IS TIED TO A PLACE

2 ARCHITECTURE IS LIMITED BY IT'S OWN MATERIALITY

3 ARCHITECTURE IS ... SOMETHING ... SOMETHING ... WHITE CARDBOARD

... unfortunately I have long forgotten that third parameter, but I feel I'm not that far off with white cardboard. What I find striking about this definition - and so overwhelmingly opposed by the theme of the Biennale - is how static it is. "Tied" and "limited". Reducing the role of architecture to a physical object. Excluding anything mobile or anything virtual. Denying the existence of time.

Erik Adigard / M-A-D & Chris Salter - Chronopolis

This is the prevalent take on architecture amongst the big fat guys at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen. It could be their own problem, but depressingly they are persuing this idea, by actively worsening conditions for different takes on the subject of architecture.

I suppose a typical behaviour from men who reach a certain age having shown less talent at producing something just vaguely fitting their own definitions, than the talent of acquiring an academic chair.

At the same time, fabulous spaces are possible. We can see them in film and in art, where visions of other places unfold in front of our eyes. ... We can watch them grow around us in the carefully planned landscapes that have become our last true public spaces.

These images and spaces are worth looking at not just because they are beautiful, but because we are confronting design challenges for which buildings are not enough.

Read on

Kowloon Walled City

My new hero Aaron Betsky is curating this years Biennale. I am slowly changing my plan of spending all the time there eating and strolling.

Georgia Georgia

2008-08-13T23:58:00.016+02:00

The above pictures are from Georgia and South Ossetia this past week. More pictures at The New York Times here and here. Some of them disturbingly beautiful.

What happened last friday makes me feel sick - will the stupidity never end. Probably not. And while Putin enjoys the possibilty of a fresh little war to keep the minds of his ignorant voters occupied for another decade or so, I am really, really wondering what dreams and hopes president Sakhasvili had last thursday when he send in the troops.? Or rather - what the fuck was he thinking? Naive thoughts of future greatness? This war seem so absurdly meaningless. It's outcome so depressingly predictable.

The only one to benefit from this is Putin and Russia.

By Surrend via Politiken. It's an ad the Danish artgroup Surrend put in the biggest Georgian Newspaper some days ago.

Surrend are great. They've done a number of other artistic interventions like this.

We need more disinformation. Otherwise we go mad.

Georgia Georgia
no peace I find
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind

Memories

2008-07-23T00:46:00.006+02:00

Secrets & Lies

2008-04-04T00:12:00.006+02:00

Night spend at dinner/workshop discussing a project on the subject of abandoned buildings and secret places.

Here are some of the things that came up:

abandon.dk - a map of abandoned - but now, no longer secret - places in Danmark

organiseret adgang - a very secretive guy who create "offices" in direlict buildings

crimson - Dutch urban and architectural thinking

Rana Hadad - Lebanese artist, graphic and web designer

Knitted Heart

2008-03-25T23:20:00.003+01:00

sarahillenberger_01.jpg, originally uploaded by WurzelStock™.

Sara Hillenberger, "Völlig Weichgestrikt" , She's also knitted the brain and the intestines.

The project "Hochgekocht" is also a bodily delight - if Arcimboldo had been into sculpture...

Street Poetry

2008-03-24T02:42:00.006+01:00

On my way to work the other mornig the soft city revealed itself. The dynamic, ephemeral, performative city. Allowing its inhabitants to leave their marks and tracks, letting itself be inscribed. Inviting to be read. The city as a medium. Supporting expression and impression. Of sensations, situations, stories and parallel realities. Creating the framework for urban consciousnes and identity.

That particular morning it revealed a desperate message of paradoxical love:

you little Spoiled
LUXURY Whore
PRINCESS
i hate you
i love you

Elastic Minds

2008-03-04T19:23:00.003+01:00

starting very slow again

Exhibition at MoMa called Design and the Elastic Mind

Found it at Kottke - good thoughts and more to find there...

Love

Prince vs. MJ

2007-09-11T20:18:00.000+02:00

I'm dead-tired and lazy so here's an easy one for you - James Brown asking first Michael Jackson, then Prince on to the stage. And we see Prince out-funkin' MJ 10 time and out-rock'n'rollin him 100! Oh yeah.

Must've been a rather nice little intimate concert experience.

Disgust vs. Lust

2007-09-09T17:29:00.000+02:00

And now I would like to present essayist, architect, artist, sportsman and now also guest blogger - Tine Bernstorff Aagaard - who've written this delightfully vulgar text as part of the Food Workshop on easa007 in Elefsina, Greece. All text and images by her.

Disgust vs. Lust

A flaneurs sensitive stroll through a meat market. The fascination of organs and limbs; cold, lifeless as well as warm and pulsing in the mediterranean evening sun. The fascination as the duality between attraction and disgust. The colors and shapes of the exhibited organic structures in an ocean of variety teasing the eye of the perceiver and forces the willing body to continue along the meatpacked arcade; moving even deeper into the all embracing atmosphere. The harsh smell of blood lingers all around.
Meat color. The weight of exposed, overwhelmingly naked body parts as one would never relate to living creatures. A somehow structured mess that does not catch the viewers eye. The Sound of butchers hammers smashing bones and bits of bodies into more bits of bodies and more meat atoms are released.
Heavy laughs and tricksy sale speaches hits bypassers without a living chance of avoiding. Coming on to one as one comes on to the flesh. One cant escape; not even ones own desire to stay.

Caught between oneself sensing the body parts as the butchers sensing one. One becomes an object. The foreigner is exposed while sketching. The breathing on ones neck. Eyes on the paper. On one. The lust of investigating every little shape, deformation of the body parts. Like stroking the slightly sticky skin gently with the palm of ones hand - with the line of the pen against the pure paper. The disgusting feeling of exposing ones desires in this ruthless environment.

In the middle of this a box appears. The content is a massive structure of snails. Moving all on top of each other. Looking like the hanging stomachs would, if they were still functioning. The structure lets some snails depart to escape. The sound of the shells hitting the tiled, wet, floor as they tip over the edge, is somehow similar to the should of the hammers smashing into the flesh and bones. The slow page of their movements seems so fast due to the fixed time of the massive 'stilleben' one is situated in. The roughness of slaughter an animal makes the process of growing of snails, seem more like the act of growing vegetables and fruits. Despite the little creatures slim chance of surviving, these escapists shows a way out. Or at least a will to get out. To escape.

One leaves with a bag full of living snails. 3,5 euro for approximately the make body count as class in primary school. One makes a habitat of lettuce and a white plastic bowl to make them survive more than the two days because of the heat one were told. One gives them names and have them - not just participating in a dinner party, but even controlling the whole autonomy of the evening. Keeping them alive for how long? This situation is even more artificial than the situation in the box in the meat market.

A dilemma again. Playing it passive perhaps. Time might choose and leave one as an observer. They might by now have lost their sliminess and will to live. Their possibility to escape was part of the game. But most are still there. With the names of the peoples one know. They were all most still last time one observed the situation. Excrements were lying all over. Like the snails might be doing now. Dry and dead.

Sonnendeck

2007-09-07T11:09:00.000+02:00

Sonnendeck by PeterLicht

And have a nice weekend :)

I Feel Like Chicken Tonight

2007-09-06T21:04:00.000+02:00

This artist, Jonathan Harris, writes amazing pieces of software. Software which maps nothing less than the mental state of the world. The results are some very poetic interactive maps. It's done by collecting data from the internet. A concept that has been tried in many variations before. What is special about this stuff is the extremely clever ways these data are treated and visualized. Fx. in We Feel Fine which maps the emotions of the world. It would be more precise to say emotions of the blogosphere perhaps... but anyway - the results seem really quite advanced and poetic, so go and play.

Newer and even more interesting than We Feel Fine is Universe - a modern mytholgy.

But before you start playing and exploring these worlds of his (or us) do yourself the favour of spending 20 min. of precious mindless browsingtime and whatch his speach from the TED conference this year, to get a very prober explanation of how these interactive maps work.

I feel like a map of myself.

(and thank you Luis for bringing my attention back to Ted's YouTube channel :)

Destroy All Symbols

2007-09-05T22:32:00.000+02:00

Athens Street Art
Coming down from the Acropolis a certain side of Athens opened itself up to me when I practically walked into this piece. Like nothing I ever saw before. Body of glued textiles and mouths of cut out prints. On top of layers upon layers of tags.

by Pheyo

I hadn't noticed anything walking up. Possibly also to do with the waves of salty sweat washing down my forehead into my eyes. But when my eyes had been opened the pieces were everywhere. Lots of different styles.

Tags all over. In thick layers. Making me wonder if the strong street art scene of Athens might be a product of the municipal authorities relaxed attitude towards keeping everything neat and tidy.

I love how street art turns the walls of the city into a media for site specific mass communication. Though most often rather abstract mass communication. In contrast to the definite and predictable messages of advertisement. And then we are closing in on the core of what makes this stuff both fantastic and important.

Ostranenie
Ostranenie - a term I've touched on one or two earlier occasions, translates into defamiliarization. It was coined by the Russian formalist writer and critic Viktor Shklovsky who views this mechanism as the trues essence of all art.

This is what he writes in his essay/manifesto Art as Technique - here conveniently highlighted for efficient blog-reading:

# 13. If we start to examine the general laws of perception, we see that as perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic. Thus, for example, all of our habits retreat into the area of the unconsciously automatic; if one remembers the sensations of holding a pen or of speaking in a foreign language for the first time and compares that with his feeling at performing the action for the ten thousandth time, he will agree with us. Such habituation explains the principles by which, in ordinary speech, we leave phrases unfinished and words half expressed. In this process, ideally realized in algebra, things are replaced by symbols. Complex words are not expressed in rapid speech; their initial sounds are barely perceived. Alexander Pogodin [in a 1913 work] offers the example of a boy considering the sentence "The Swiss mountains are beautiful" in the form of a series of letters: T, S, m, a, b.

# 14. This characteristic of thought not only suggests the method of algebra, but even prompts the choice of symbols (letters, especially initial letters). By this 'algebraic' method of thought we apprehend objects only as shapes with imprecise extensions; we do not see them in their entirety but rather recognize them by their main characteristics. We see the object as though it were enveloped in a sack. We know what it is by its configuration, but we see only its silhouette. The object, perceived thus in the manner of prose perception, fades and does not leave even a first impression; ultimately even the essence of what it was is forgotten. Such perception explains why we fail to hear the prose word in its entirety (see Leo Jakubinsky's article) and, hence, why (along with other slips of the tongue) we fail to pronounce it. The process of 'algebrization,' the over-automatization of an object, permits the greatest economy of perceptive effort. Either objects are assigned only one proper feature - a number, for example - or else they function as though by formula and do not even appear in cognition.
And then you get the next part full length...

I was cleaning a room and, meandering about, approached the divan and couldn't remember whether or not I had dusted it. Since these movements are habitual and unconscious, I could not remember and felt that it was impossible to remember - so that if I had dusted it and forgot - that is, had acted unconsciously, then it was the same as if I had not. If some conscious person had been watching, then the fact could be established. If, however, no one was looking, or looking on unconsciously, if the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been. [Leo Tolstoy's Diary, 1897]

# 15. And so life is reckoned as nothing. Habitualization devours works, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war. "If the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been." And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects 'unfamiliar,' to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object: the object is not important. [This key statement has been translated different ways; Robert Scholes, for instance, renders it as: In art, it is our experience of the process of construction that counts, not the finished product.] (from "Art as Technique" - click for full text)

After rereading Shklovkys text the above statement suddenly made sense. How you can destroy symbols with symbols.

One street artist who really take this effect of ostranenie to the sublime is Banksy, so in his concise words:

If you want someone to be ignored then build a lifesize bronze statue of them and stick it in the middle of town.

It doesn't matter how great you were, it'll always take an unfunny drunk with climbing skills to make people notice you. ("Wall and Piece", p. 208)

It draws us out of the white noize of our everyday routine and draws our attention not only to itself - but also to the space around it. And our bodys place in relation to that. Allows us to locate ourself both geographically and mentally in the urban space.

Wheeew - that was a rather long and rather messy one... a beer to anyone who followed me this far.

Can Touch This

2007-09-03T23:23:00.000+02:00

I've been dealing a bit with advanced interface-design before, here & here. And in fact what Jeff Han is doing here is not really different from what Microsoft Surface can do. He just have a much better idea of what to use it for. In other words - this is so much more useful fx. looking at graphic visualizations of complex data, where the ability to both see the big picture and infinitely small details is important... rather than using it as an interactive sofa table... thank you microsoft for really making a difference.

Towards the end of the interview he says something really interesting about a possible 3D-version. It turns out the actual problem with this is that the human body has great difficulty doing very presize gestures when it doesn't have anything to push against. It's the problem of keeping your fingertip in an excact point in space, while taking a step to the side. Something that's very easy to do if you rest it against a wall.

So maybe even Jeff Hans design is a dead end too. Lot's of more videos of this on Youtube.

Souvenirs

2007-08-28T00:41:00.001+02:00

By Michael Hughes

and here I ought to write something smart about realities, time, presence, etc.... but I'm to tired. So you'll have to just enjoy the rest of his Souvenir Photoset on flickr. He's been around. And think of something smart yourself.

Urban Angels

2007-08-25T11:51:00.000+02:00

Last night I went and saw this show, "Fallen From The Sky" by the Circo da Madrugada. Taking place in a park in Ørestaden surrounded by tall buildings from where the performers entered, sliding fastly hundreds of meters on suspended wires. The visual impact of the whole thing and the proximity of the performers - flying around right above ones head and running about in the crowd - really gave a sense of presence. Extremely nice.

Only drawback was the rather annoying narrator. The story so banal it would have stood much stronger had the performance been allowed to speak for itself.

Half Machine

2007-08-20T23:39:00.000+02:00

photo by P-Real

If you are in Copenhagen this weekend go to see Halfmachine on their new ship. Robot-performance-underground-arty-farty stuff. Submarine ballet, floating interactive flamethrowers, sounds, etc... - all together a living world of eclectic imagery.

Or check out some of the other events that's part of the wonderful and brand new Metropolis Biennale

Visible Humans, part II

2007-08-16T23:37:00.000+02:00

This video is based on data from the Visible Human Project which I wrote about back in '05. The aim of the project "is the creation of complete, anatomically detailed, three-dimensional representations of the normal male and female human bodies. ... The male was sectioned at one millimeter intervals, the female at one-third of a millimeter intervals."

It's the best video of this project I found on the net. It really shows how different sections can be cut through the 3D model, giving some rather unusual perspectives on it. I even quite like the music.

Made by Les Frère Lefdrup ...

And now of to bed with sweet dreams of traveling through bodies... I'll be good soon and post some proper stuff... promise ... boy-scout honour ... in the near, near future... it's just that not only did my feet stay in Greece - so did most of my fingers on my right hand and a few on the left. Difficult to type. And the net-connection is really slow too.

Home

2007-08-10T01:07:00.000+02:00

Home again. And I have not found my feet here yet. After two weeks of architectural hedonism. I seem to have left them behind. I think I know when it happened.

The last couple of days I'd been looking forward to the fresh Copenhagen breeze, the cool sheets of my bed, perhaps even a little dusty rain...

I guess also for other travellers than myself the turning point arrives as we approach the airport check-in. Nearing it one begin to sense something. At first it's a low mutter. Then sprawled clusters of strangers. Finally forming into the dradful line of fellow countrymen. Reminding you what you are going back to. This could have been anticipated but is blissfully forgotten. Mentally surpressed. You find yourself in a world of arguing parents, trying to get ahead in line, complaining, taking bloody ages... And you're forced to stand there with them. Sharing loud stories of local incompetence. Not even aboard the plane - but already engulfed in dreary Danishness.

And that's when my feet left me.

EASA

2007-07-26T02:45:00.000+02:00

As the regular readers have noticed Adam in the World is enjoying the summer vacation. Instead of posting activities has included the Roskilde Festival, hanging out with my grandmother and playing with my old Lego.

At this very moment though I find myself in Elefsina, just outside Athens. Together with 420 students of Architecture from 35 European countries + plus a few from Latin America. EASA (European Architecture Student Assembly) has been taking place since 1981. Every year in a different place. Two weeks packed with workshops and parties and loads and loads of international socializing.

This year my role is to support a workshop about food (ritualized meals, the influence of context, memories and fx sound on the experience of eating, etc... good old fashioned playful conceptual experimentation) and to help out with all the power tools for the more practical workshops.

It's 45°C, really well organized this year, food is great, people are happy and the workshops are beginning to really take off. In other words - th atmoshpere is excellent.

For regular, possibly rather chit-chatting, updates of what's happening throughout the event check out the easa blog.

Delft

2007-07-12T01:15:00.001+02:00

Just came back from the Roskilde Festival. Despite the amounts of mud and tents it is indeed a truly urban experience, a yearly experiment in ephemeral urbanity - a city of 100.000 people existing for 4 days. Build of nylon, rain, beer, shit, love and rock'n roll.

There's much to tell but it will not be now. Please just enjoy this painting by Vermeer - View of House in Delft ... which has noting to do with Roskilde. Except that it is also a city, where sometimes it rains.

What I like particularly about this painting is the plane of the facade. It Appears so two-dimensional. A veil. It is so fragile, full of cracks and holes. Explored and penetrated by the gaze of the viewer. A surface containing or defining a depth of its own.

Click it and it gets fabulously big.

Theremin

2007-07-02T01:19:00.000+02:00

What can I say... the Theremin is one of the more freaky intruments out there. It is, I think, the only instrument you play without touching. And yet it is as dependent on your bodys position and movements as a musical suit.

This the Ether & Æther orchestra. Randy George on theremin. Playing the Gnarls Barkley hit Crazy. And I've never heard anything like Randy George.

Happy monday!

Running the Numbers

2007-06-30T16:27:00.001+02:00

From the project 'Running the Numbers' by Chris Jordan. Above you see 6 panels displaying 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005. Below is a detail in actual size.

The brilliance of this project is how it visualizes those unfathomable quantities in a way so they become almost tangible. 2.3 mill. is no longer an abstract number, but can now be "experienced fundamentally through a bodily identification rather than as mere external objects" - if you remember Pallasmaas and Benjamins thoughts from this post.

You step up close to the panels. Zoom in. And can imagine the human body fitting inside each of the folded uniforms. You take five steps back. And as you do it, the overwhelming scale and tragedy of the American prison system presents itself. The abstract numbers are really understood through your body, its position in space, its relation to the image on the wall.

Pixelator

2007-06-29T01:00:00.000+02:00

Turn down volume and watch...

"Since 2003, the MTA has made available for exhibition purposes 80 LED screens located at subway entrances across New York City. ... While the MTA's effort to create more opportunities for video art exhibition in public spaces is to be commended, selected works remain wholly fixated on commercial goods and media conglomerate events, a short-sighted curatorial choice that regrettably ignores the full potential of these promising exhibition spaces."

The PIXELATOR project including an easy How To guide

Text Guitar

2007-06-28T22:16:00.000+02:00

Purple Haze

KRANk!! KRank!!
kraNK!! krANK!!
KLANk!! KLank!!
kraNG!! krANG!!
WHOopa-WHOO-whOOOOoooOOOOoooOOOOoooOOOooooOOOOoooOOOOoo
WHoo-wHOOPa-wHOOOoooOOOOoooOOOooooOOOOoo
WHoopa-WHoo-wHOOOoooOOOOoooOOOooooOOOooooOOOooooOOOOo
WHOO-whOOPa-poWWWWwwwWWWWwooOOOOoooOOOoooo
KRangGA-TwanG-TWangGGGggggGGGGgggGGGGgggGGGGgg
TWanggA-Twang-TWAnggGGGGgggGGGggggGGGggggGGGggggGGGGgggGGGGgg
WhoopA-Whoo-WHOooooOOOooooOOOooooOOOooooOOOooooOOOOoo
WHOo-wHOOPa-wHOOOoooOOOooooOOOooooOOOooooOOO!
kRANggggGGGGgggGGGggggGGGggggGGGGgggGGGGgggGG. . .

twaNGGA-twANG-twaNG-twanGGA-twaNG-twanG
TwanGGGggggGGGggggGGGGgggGGGGgggGGGGgg
TwangGA-twanG-TWang-TWAnggA-Twang-TWAng
PURPLE HAZE, ALL IN MY BRAIN!
LATELY THINGS DON'T SEEM THE SAME!
TWANgleTWAngleTWAngleTWAngleTWAngle
I'M ACTIN' FUNNY BUT I DON'T KNOW WHY?

'SCUSE ME WHILE I KISS THE SKY!
TWAngga-TWang-TWAngggGGGggggGGGggggGGGG
tWANGg-tWANg-twANGggggGGGggggGGGggggGGGGgggGGG
tWANGga-TWAng-tWANggggGGGggggGGGggggGGGggggGGGG
TWANgggGGGGgggGGGGgggGGGggggGGG
PURPLE HAZE ALL AROUND!
DON'T KNOW, IF I'M COMING UP OR DOWN
AM I HAPPY? OR IN MISERY?

WHATEVER IT IS, THAT GIRL, PUT A SPELL ON ME!
TWAngga TWang TWANgggGGGggggGGGggggGGGG
tWANgg-tWANg-twANGGgggGGGGgggGGGggggGGGggggGGG
tWANGga-TWAng-tWANggggGGGGgggGGGGgggGGGGgggGGGg
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twanGGA-twaNG-TwanGGA-twaNG-twanGGA-twaNGGggggGGGggggGGGggg-TWANgga TWAng TWAngggGGGggggGGGggggGGGG
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twaNGGa-twANG-twaNGGa-twANG-twaNGGA-twANGggggGGGGgggGGGGggg
TwangGGGggggGGGGgggGGGGgggGGGggggGGGGgooOOOOoeeEEEEe
HELp me BABy! HELP me BAby!
TWAnggGGGGgggGGGggggGGGGg
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whOOPA-whOO-WhooOOOOoooOOOOoooOOOooooOOOOoooOOOOoooOOOO
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WHOO-whOOPa-whOOOOoooOOOooooOOOOoooOOOooooOO
kraNGGGgggGGGggggGGGggggGGGGgggGGGggggGGGGgggGG!
PURPLE HAZE WAS IN MY EYES!
DON'T KNOW IF IT'S DAY OR NIGHT!
YOU'VE GOT ME BLOWING, BLOWING MY MIND!

IS IT TOMORROW? OR JUST THE END OF TIME?
WHOOpa-WHOo-whOOOooooOOOooooOOOooooOOOooooOOOooooOOOo
wHOO-whoOPA-whoOOOOoooOOOOoooOOOOoooOOOooooO
KranGGGggggGGGggggGGGGgggGGGGgggGGGggggGGGggg!
TwangGGGGgggGGGGgggGGGggggGGGgg
HElp mE Baby! HElp mE BAby!
YEaaaAAAAah!
YEAAAAAAAAH! PURPLE HAZE! YEAH YEAH
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YEAAAAAAAAH! PURPLE HAZE!
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twaNGGggggGGGggggGGGGgggGGGggggGGGGgggOOOOoooEEEeeee!
Help ME babY! Help ME babY!
twaNGGGgggGGGGgggGGGGgggG
twaNGGLtwaNGLetwaNGGLeeeEEEEeeeEEEeeeeEEEe.......
tWANggggGGGggggGGGGgggGGGGgggG
whooPA-Whoo-WHooooOOOOoooOOOooooOOOooooOOOooooOOOooooOO
whoO-WHoopA-WHoooOOOooooOOOooooOOOOoooOO
whoOPA-whoO-WHoooOOOOoooOOOooooOOOooooOOOOoooOOOooooO
TwanGGA-twaNG-twanGGGGgggGGGggggGGGggggGGGGggg
TwangGA-TwanG-KRangGGGGgggGGGG!!! !

Written live by MoveOverRover in the comments on this article. So click it and scrool down for more Hendrix hits.

Argggoddammit - blogger cut's of the end of all the long guitar riffs... well, just follow the link and get the whole concert uncut.

A Tree

2007-06-28T00:33:00.001+02:00

We need some life here. Old life. Seen over time in glimpses. Notice the little guy in the red jacket appearing twice.

I'm really quite buggered with Natasja dying just like that. Never before felt like that for someone I've never met in person. She's my Lady Di i think.

All the music that will never be.

The only consolation is the fact that she was on Jamaica. Had just played a concert. Was driving away from it in the company of her best friend. Stoned, drunk and happy as can be. That was her state of mind when she died. And that could be worse.

Give her some airtime this summer.

Tree by James Balog - via Pruned

Lille T

2007-06-25T19:46:00.001+02:00

Little T

2007-06-24T20:03:00.000+02:00

Natasja interviewet i Bryggebladet

Sad, sad and shocking news - Danish rapper and dancehall queen Natasja Saad, aka Little T, died this afternoon in a car crash on Jamaica.

She had a flow like no one else around here. And she had something to say. Her future seemed brighter than ever and now it stopped. Just like that.

This is from summer '06 when she won - in front of 700 other contestants - Irie FM's influential "Big Break" contest in Jamaica.

Next to the video there's a press release from her manager

The concept "fair" has obviously never been part of natures (dis)order in this world...

Peace

Thresholds

2007-06-24T16:53:00.000+02:00

To much to prepare for tomorrow - when I'll be hosting a small seminar on the subjects Shared Space and interactive urban spaces - to write anything sensible... so today just a photo I took on Vesterbro.

...and happy sunday .

Oh - in case you need something to ruin your evening with: Desktop Tower Defense... a very, very contagious game. Via Kottke.

Macrosoft part 2

2007-06-23T02:52:00.000+02:00

... to follow up on the comments to the previous post:

Fred mentions above video - a parody of an ad for Microsoft Surface. It points directly to what is probably Microsofts main problem - they buy some very cool existing technology without having any idea what to use it for whatsoever.
So they make a very expensive completely niche product that can do anything in the world, but nothing in particular. Meaning it's still all just potential. As it was when they bought it.
At the same time Apple takes quite a bit of the same technology, makes it pocketsized and affordable. Because they had a clear picture of the iPhone. They start with functionality. A specific idea.

Along this line it's very instructional to compare Microsoft Surface to Reactable - super cool project Dubi has brought to light. Here's what the main man behind it, dr. Sergi Jorda, says:
"... unlike many projects which involves a lot of technology, it started from a concept and not from a technology. So first we knew what we wanted to build and then we discovered how to build it"

This video shows the basic principles of Reactable. It's a little noisy, but so nice. Notice that the hardware is exactly the same as for Surface, except Reactable is round... in other words - anyone can make a touchscreen table-computer... the interesting question is why you do it.

I'll end it here for now cause it's late. Hope to pick up on the vitual reality tomorrow. Tangible, tactile, virtual reality perhaps. Just got a marathon monologue with a mad genious to go through before...

Macrosoft

2007-06-21T21:11:00.000+02:00

This movie shows a demonstration of the most incredible piece(s) of software I ever saw.

But please notice in the beginning the sentence: "...technology we brought to Microsoft as part of an acquisition" - in other words M$ didn't figure this out themselves. They bought a little innovative company who had already done it. An important point for a mac-addict like me, hehe.

None the less - this looks so incredibly exciting.

Once more via my new favorite blog Bioephemera - spend some time there. It's worth it.

And there's a new, and much needed, label: "Technology"... to compensate "web" will die. This should open up for some more posts about things such as robots and interactive architecture.

Blind

2007-06-20T21:19:00.000+02:00

Being an architect currently working as a planner on a project with a timeframe of two years - and that's just to make a fucking strategy - I've always envied the a- & possibility of musicians to be present in the now. The immediacy of their artform. Goes right from mind & body and out into the world. Now. Here.
Along this line one must also say that what is produced is extremly ephemeral. It also only exists now. And then it dissapears again. Off course aboriginal songlines are probably 40.000 years old, but for now let's concentrate on what the individual produces and experiences. As such, music is apparently the complete opposite of architecture.

However Juhanni Pallasmaa writes (architectureanimation, p. 58): "Music has historically been regarded as the art form closest to architecture. The metaphor of architecture as 'frozen music' is an expression of this relatedness. ... the over 2000 years of Pythagorean tradition concretely connects the principles of musical and architectural harmonies."

Pallasmaa goes on to talk about film being even closer to arch than music. But then continues - referring to Walter Benjamin and his book The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - he writes: "In Benjamins view, architecture and film are communicated primarily through the tactile realm in opposition to the pure visuality of the painting. ... Works of music ... as well as architecture, are experienced fundamentally through a bodily identification rather than as mere external objects".

And so we return to the blind Stevie Wonder. Standing on the stage obviously identifying with the music through his body - as well as his ears. Experiencing the space through his body - not his eyes. Thus, even thoug both music and architectuere are abstract artforms, it becomes a tactile experience. And the music, the space and the body becomes one.

Which is one of the basic priciples of songlines. We're closing in on that subject.

And also perhaps answering the question of why this blog, sort of claiming to be concerned with architecture, has such a focus on things relating to the body.

Status

2007-06-18T23:43:00.000+02:00

Dear readers - It's time for a little status-report. The fact is that it has never gone better here on the blog. I changed the layout a while back and started posting consistently. Tweaked the design again a few days back. The aim has been more simplicity and legibility. Hope you like it.

There's never been more visitors - though most, 95% in fact, of them only come to see Britney give birth from behind. Fortunately the regular readership is also slowly expanding. And that is seriously nice. There's even a handfull of complete strangers amongst you. However I can safely say you're still a part of a true cult phenomenon.

I'm still trying to find the right format for posts. I've realized I'm not the most organized blogger in the world. Some are long and serious. Some short and silly. They sort of just follow my mood and momentary inspiration. And there's probably nothing to do about it, however much I want a strong, stylish concept.

So that's how it is. I you have any suggestions or critique - fx what to do with the hundreds of people wanting to see Britneys wide open pussy - don't hesitate to write me a mail or comment.

Cheers and thank you for reading :)

Love and peace

Adam

ps - bldgblog reports that Peter Cook has been knighted... so that's Sir Cook henceforth. Cheers to him. May he sleep well during crits.

Who is Guy Débord

2007-06-17T14:38:00.000+02:00

Dear Hajra just commented on the previous post and left a wonderful present:

Situatinists in Wonderland - a very nice and suitable analogy on their ideas. You don't wanna miss Part One either... actually you probably ought to start with it...

And to continue with some more Alice in Wonderland here's another movie I came across yesterday on the seemingly very, very nice blog Bioephemera. This one's by an absolute favorite of mine - Jan Svankmajer:

Happy Sunday... and if you feel the need to know more about the situationsts after this just follow the links in the previous post.

Puuh... hope this won't get much to slow to load with all them movies...

Urban Nomad

2007-06-16T21:48:00.000+02:00

A while back I promised a loong in-depth series about the aborigine mapping-koncept of songlines. And I admit it's been so so with the updates on that. But you must understand we're talking serious stuff here. Serious thinking.

So - introduced to the subject by the gentlemen Hank Williams and in particular Tony Bennett - let's continue warming up on the subject and take a detour around urban nomads.

Many people living in cities today doens't let themselves be defined by a limited geographical locality. Rather our identity is created through the daily or weekly routes we move along through the city. From home, to work, to favorite bar, etc... and when we get a new job our route shifts and we see a new city. But we don't plot these routes according to practical consideration alone. They also follow our immediate desires and mood. Through these choices we define ourself and the city. And as the city changes atmosphere throughout the day, year or more - we change our routes. It is not the place that matters but the velocity (uuh - veloCITY) we choose to move with.

Naked City

The Parisian bohème around 1900, the flaneur, drifted strolling through the city. A tempo where the senses are kept open to even the most ephemeral impressions - the scent of a woman, the mood around montmatre at dawn.
The 50'ies International Situationists with Guy Debord and Asger Jorn made it into an artistic strategy - the Dérive. Their Psychogeographic maps are assembled of urban fragments. Areas and places with particular atmospheres, connected by taxi-rides.

Space changes over time. Not just when you build up or tear down. But because the subject that percieves the space always will be moving. Always interpreting. And thus an urban space is is not stable, but vibrating with the people who occupies it. Taking shape of their actions and the memories of other places they bring with them. Actions and memories again shaped by the space where they take place.

Extra bonus - found this along way:
Psychogeographic Guides to Paris and New Orleans

Extra extra bonus - Oh Tony, style and charm and those moves, my new hero... here's three more videos with him:
Interview and duet wit K.D. Lang - such an odd couple making that particular song even more beautiful.
Starring in the Comedy show Saturday Night Live - this really made me crack up.
And finally the young Tony again on the Dean Martin Show - those funky underplayed moves

Caution

2007-06-15T23:08:00.000+02:00

Hope ya'll like the new layout

100% perfect

2007-06-14T19:26:00.000+02:00

An easy post for me, a hard one for you... a whole long, very beautiful, short-story by Haruki Murakami who I hadn't read anything by untill Dubi sent me this today... I think I could get rather used to it to be honest.

Read it - 10 minutes... 15 - max...

On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning

One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harajuku neighborhood, I walk past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is dry as a desert.

Maybe you have your own favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you're drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I'll catch myself staring at the girl at the table next to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

But no on can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can't recall the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It's weird.

"Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% perfect girl," I tell someone.

"Yeah?" he says. "Good-looking?"

"Not really."

"Your favorite type, then?"

"I don't know. I can't seem to recall anything about her - the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts."

"Strange."

"Yeah. Strange."

"So anyhow," he says, already bored, "what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?"

"Nah. Just passed her on the street."

She's walking east to west, and I west to east. It's a really nice April morning.

Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and - what I'd really like to do - explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock built when peace filled the world.

After talking, we'd have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woodie Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.
How can I approach her? What should I say?

"Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?"

Ridiculous. I'd sound like an insurance salesman.

"Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?"

No, this is just as ridiculous. I'm not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who's going to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. "Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me."

No, she wouldn't believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you're not the 100% perfect boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I'd probably go to pieces. I'd never recover from the shock. I'm thirty-two, and that's what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can't bring myself to speak to her. She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp. So: She's written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain every secret she's ever had.
I take a few more strides and turn: She's lost in the crowd.
Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.

Oh well. It would have started "Once upon a time" and ended "A sad story, don't you think?"

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day, the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

"This is amazing," he said. "I've been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you are the 100% perfect girl for me."

"And you," she said to him, "are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I'd pictured you in every detail. It's like a dream."

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It's a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of a doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one's dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, "Let's test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other's 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we'll marry then and there. What do you think?"

"Yes," she said, "that is exactly what we should do."

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed on, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should have never undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other's 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.

One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season's terrible influenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. Their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence's piggy bank.
They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking east to west, both along the same narrow street in the Harujuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in the chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their lost memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fourteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don't you think?

Yes, that's it, that is what I should have said to her.

------------------------------------------------------------

No animals were harmed during the posting of this blog.

Any resemblance with living persons is purely coincidental.

------------------------------------------------------------

Check out Murakamis official website - very cool if you ask me.

Also someone has made a rather nice visualization of the story. Letters about four times too small to read, but it looks very pretty and poetic - pure visual poetry.

Broken Hearts

2007-06-12T16:34:00.000+02:00

One thing leads to another - we all know that. And so the movie from yesterday led me on to these two:

This is the HeartLander, a so-called cardiac robot. It is inserted through a small hole in the body to mend a broken heart ... well, doesn't that just sound too good to be true! Above is the first prototype, below is the new slimmer, faster and funkier version. One of it's great successes so far is a myocardial injection which as far is I can understand is about tatooing a dot on the heart. Very handy. But what do I know.

Apparently one of its very funky abilities is that it can move about on a beating heart. An ability I'm sure patients still alive will appreciate. Obviously it's all still in early testing. None the less it is a rather impressive little robot they've made. So bloody simple.

I guess the finetuning of its mechanics might not hav been so simple though. Not to mention the practice it takes to learn controlling it - with what looks like a pretty regular joystick. All in all amazingly amazing.

Rotating Matta-Clark

2007-06-11T23:25:00.000+02:00

When stress at work coincides with very nice weather blogging becomes rather hard. That's years of personal experience talking right there. Luckily our correspondent in Belgrade spend as much time roaming the net as usual - she send me a link to this film today:

In liverpool sculptor Richard Wilson has created a piece reminiscent of an updated but not quite as interesting Gordon Matta-Clark-work. Amazing what you can do with simple technology and a few (450.000) pounds and some giant shoulders to stand on... tssss! At least mr. Wilson could have come up with a less obvious title than Turning the place over. The very archilicious Bldgblog has some stills of it here.

I hate obvious titles. They don't add a thing to whatever they describe, except perhaps a cheap giggle. If you insist giving your artpieces obvious titles you should really be consequent and go for the good old style a la nude women bathing with cows and geese in the background (bad example - now I'll have geese fetichists all over my blog). My friend Odey got me into those the other day... and he's a real artist. Certified and royal. The final bonus of this post is a painting by him. If you're in Copenhagen do yourself a favour and go and watch it full size - 200 x 170 cm - at EXIT07.

One of the reasons I like his work is that instead of stating the obvious he makes realities clash. Mmmmmmm.... Odey Curbelo - the man :)

Guardians of Memory

2007-06-08T00:04:00.001+02:00

Guardians of Memory, originally uploaded by Anandamide.

Mmmmm....memory.... I did it long time ago, but I have to do it again - draw your attention to the amazing world of anandamide. A master of delicate photomanipulation, creating surreal images and sets with a strong sense of a narrative. And I like that. He can even draw.

Freestyle Battle

2007-06-05T15:35:00.000+02:00

Today it's the Danish national day. Meaning I as a public employee get to sit in the sun and laugh of my friends toiling hard in their dynamic architectural studios. Why I choose to spend this day inside in front of my laptop is another question.

To further rub salt in the wound here's a little extra holiday treat they can't enjoy unless they put on headphones - an awesome freestyle battle by the two grime mc's Wiley and Kano. Amazing what young kids nowadays can do with a little practice and a lot of drugs... or should that be the other way round... probably.

Joking aside - these guys standing on a derelict staircase transcribe thoughts into words and beats faster than ... something very fast.

Long Pork, part II

2007-06-05T05:54:00.000+02:00

I've used the term long pork before without elaborating on its meaning. But since my discovery that the photo in that post now rank no. 1 in google image searches on the term I feel obliged to do just that.

Long pork is a term used by south east pacific islanders as an euphemism for human flesh. Isn't that wonderful. Most sources claim it refers to the taste being pig-like. But according to amarican occult journalist William Buehler Seabrook human flesh is more "like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted. It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal."

Pictured above is the pioneer plaque send with pioneer 10 and 11 into deep space. It is devised to describe to extra terrastials what humans look like and where to get them. Just like the menus the myriad of local pizza joints keep leaving in my mailbox. If aliens do ever arrive here to have a taste of the exotic delicacy we might be to them this recipy for whole roast human seem to me like a good, if time consuming, choice. Otherwise I've heard that the upper arm of a young woman is supposed to be the most tasty and tender cut. Bon appetit.

For a thorough read on cannibalism i suggest you turn to wikipedias article on the subject. Or return here - quite a few interesting links came up during research which I'll be posting in the future.

Balkan Blast Bash

2007-05-30T22:34:00.001+02:00

Oh Yeah - there's a party going on... as part of Copenhagen Distortion the boys from This Issue has put together a Balkan Streetparty in Blågårdsgade tomorrow.

And yours truly aka DJ Cvrst is gonna entertain for the first hour with a hit mix of beats from the east. After when I plan retiring to the dancefloor (street) in the company of a bottle of Slivovitz (IPA pronunciation: /slivovɪts/) (Serbian: шљивовица, šljivovica; Bulgarian: сливова, slivova, or сливовица, slivovitsa; Slovenian: slivovka; Croatian: šljivovica; Bosnian: šljivovica, šljiva; Macedonian: сливовица, slivovitsa, or сливова ракија, slivova rakija; Polish: śliwowica /ɕli.vɔ.'vi.tsa/; Romanian: şliboviţă; Slovak: slivovica; Czech: slivovice)

Snaps

2007-05-30T20:17:00.000+02:00

Sometimes there's a long way between the snaps'... or should that be snapses - as in shots drunk in collectivity at regular intervals during lunch. The snaps itself and its digestive qualities being the only reasons for the toast.
Anyway - the snaps'... sometimes they're just too far apart in the big lunch of life. And sometimes they're just to far apart on a blog with more ambition than... erm... blogging... and sometimes they land on shore like long sets of waves sailing in from an endless sea of snaps. Yes, that's how it is.

The above picture depicts mr Green, sculptured by Juan Balandran, blogging rough and intimate short stories from LA as The Red Rooster. He doesn't post often. But the snaps' are very very close. And come full of booze and sweat and painful women.

His subject matter - people and destinies in LA I guess we'll call it - reminds me of P.S. Zollo who take fantastic portraits and descriptions of the encounters with people on the streets of Hollywood. Many of them homeless. Read the whole story and comments about Persephone and cry in your heart.

Persephone & Bert, originally uploaded by P.S.Zollo.

Porridge

2007-05-30T00:44:00.000+02:00

I am sorry for not posting lately... it just so happens that I have become a bit stressed at work. Just a bit. For the first time. The project has recently moved into the so-called porridge fase. All the while the sun has been shining as mercilessly as possible this time and place. So, only really merciless if you are sitting inside an office.

In other words summer has actually arrived now. Oh yes, I've even been swimming in the sea... and grilling freshly caught fish. And reading about songlines - just you wait, it'll be spread on this blog like flakes of gold...

The picture above I'm afraid does not have anything to do with anything. But as the aborigenes say "nothing is nothing"... so why not - it does fit the theme of this blog well. It is a facade in India made of cow poopoo, each with the imprint of a hand. The action of building becomes the ornament, as the builder imprints himself onto each brick. Scanned from the lovely photobook "suspended on a line" by Walter Battistessa (so it's actually only half a photo).

Political Poetry

2007-05-24T00:53:00.000+02:00

We need to get more political here. Even in my quiet corner of the world it is turbulent times like never before in my lifetime... perhaps I should blog about it... but for now we'll zoom out a bit and have a little lesson about political communication:

Frede tipped me of on this one ... and now i see he has made yet another well written post about it (in Danish)
.

Deep End Dining

2007-05-22T00:12:00.000+02:00

After reading the previous post my beautiful assistant Petter reminded me of Eddie Lins Deep End Dining-blog...well written and witty gastro journalism by a man who fears nothing. So please be introduced to the term extreme dining. Best way of being that is this video I believe:

live tentacles from alba on Vimeo

Live tentacles served in The Prince restaurant in L.A. "The Prince, however, has a culinary dark side. At the end of the heavy bound menu near the bottom of the page are a couple of secret items known only to those who can decipher the Korean script. " - a masterpiece in gastro-journalism starting off with a beautiful story of his little sister.

Also be sure to read other classic posts such as the egg of darkness - balut aka duck fetus or Eddies take on a extreme dining classic - Eat Fugu - or Die Tryin' ... the poisonous-blowfish-sushi also famously eaten by Homer Simpson:

Food Design

2007-05-20T20:18:00.000+02:00

Food, it's production and consumption - the act of eating is fundamentally connected to human existence and experience. On level with only sex. And as sex it is an act of close contact between two bodies. Resulting in complex sensorial experiences of smells, flavours and textures. Be it a chicken or a pomegranate, processed or whole and raw - there's a bit of cannibalism involved in every meal. And as such it is ourselfs we look into when we eat.

"In the “Disembodied Cuisine” we will attempt to grow frog skeletal muscle over biopolymer for potential food consumption. A biopsy will be taken from an animal which will continue to live and be displayed in the gallery along side the growing “steak”. This installation will culminate in a “feast”. The idea and research into this project began in Harvard in 2000. The first steak we have grown was made out of pre-natal sheep cells (skeletal muscle). We used cells harvested as part of research into tissue engineering techniques in utero. The steak was grown from an animal that was not yet born."

A view of the installation including the kitchen, the frog's aquarium and the dining table - all enclosed within an airthight environment to comply with regulations for biohazards. Photos from the feast here.

Marti Guixe is celebrating 10 years working with food design. And he has made so incredibly many, incredibly nice small and big, funny and thoughtprovoking designs. Fx. above orangeflavoured lollipop with an orangeseed inside. Lot's of pictures at his site. I believe he has also been associated with Droog Design somehow... they do quite a lot of food-stuff too...

Finally we are obliged to end this trail of thought with Cloaca - a wonderful installation, a machine that turns food into shit.

Via Culiblog - a must for all food designers... oh - a post on Drawing Reastraint 9 and food

and We Make Money Not Art

Amateurs

2007-05-18T23:16:00.000+02:00

On a friday night like this you've deserved some light entertainment... but you'll have to promise to read through the entire post below as well... yes, the exiting one about songlines...

By Lasse Gjertsen

I think a bit of genious is involved here..

Songlines part I

2007-05-18T20:27:00.001+02:00

Ayers Rock a.k.a. Uluru a.k.a. Beethovens 5th + Ulysses

OK... I have to write something about songlines now. It's a term, a concept, I've been circling the past year and a half. Since I was led on to read the aptly named book "the Songlines", written by Bruce Chatwin. Compulsory reading for all architects and planners - when I become president.

Songlines is a virtual map of Australia used by the Aborigenes. That is one way to describe it and my main angle of interest. Imagine a nomadic people. With stoneage technology. Walking the desert for 50.000 years (go home Jesus and your 40 days). They have no practical way to carry around maps of routes they only use once every 50 years. They have to keep all in their minds. They use song for this. Stories, narratives, with a melody.

"In the beginning the earth was an infinite and murky plain, separated from the sky and from the grey salt sea and smothered in a shadowy twilight."

The beginning describes a world, an earth, where all things is allready there. As lumps of matter hidden in the ground. The Ancients. All this potential is released when the sun first feel the urge to be born. It's not an outside force who pulls it up. It's all there allready. All in right time. The Ancients, the Ancestors, awaken and rise in the sun.

"The mud fell from their thighs, like placenta from a baby. Then, like the baby's first cry, each Ancestor opened his mouth and called out, 'I AM!' "... each one "put out his left foot and called out a second name. He put out his right foot and called a third name ... calling all things into being and weaving their names into verse".

Thus the land was not there before it was named. It must exist in the mind first. Not far from a buddhist idea of the world as an illusion. The land is the stories told about it. And vice versa the stories can be read in the landscape - each rock and river and featureless plain of gravel playing their part. Noting the melody as one walk past.

This all points to a number of interesting ideas - which will be discussed in upcoming posts and filed under the brand new label "songlines" :

- The question of identity and belonging.

- Memory of a space through a narrative

- The landscape as a representation of itself.

- Space perceived as a network

... and more - so stay tuned...

The Miracle of Birth III

2007-05-16T18:49:00.000+02:00

Last night I went to Kristine and Petters place and saw their brand new child for the first time. It's a she. She's got red hair. And her name is Saga. Which is a bit strange, but we'll just have to get used to it. Anyway it means the one who sees and tell stories. So there's already great expectations on her little shoulders. And she looks very very sweet. Hip Hip Hooray for Kristine and Petter - they are so cool

This however has made me wonder. About the more practical side of this whole procreation thing. The process. Or rather - the production design. It doesn't really seem thought properly through in my opinion.

Now, what we see here is an entire child on its way out, head first, through an opening we men know to normally fit rather nicely around something the size of large carrot. Incredible, but not very practical.

Also notice how clean the child looks on this image - made to be shown in American courtrooms. This of course has nothing to do with actual conditions...

by Raul Gutierrez

What a mess. Not even the baby looks happy about it. Intelligent designer - come on! The umbellical cord is rather cool though.

Apparently there was a time when it could be done with grace and dignity... only the bare foot reveals a bit of tension, a slight twitch of the toes. I'm sure that's how Kristine handled the situation as well (well, actually Petter said she'd made faces he'd never seen before and sounds he'd never imagined her able to voice) :

Ah, the good old days - all a woman would need was a stool and a pair of fashionably dressed and descrete ladies to hold up her dress. Now please enjoy Monty Pythons take on the situation:

Gligorov

2007-05-09T22:48:00.000+02:00

Robert Gligorov - born 1960 in Macedonia, working in Italy - makes disturbing and fascinating images. With a strong sense of materiality, texture, tactility. Though many of them are pretty darn gory, they are at the same time poetic and sensitive... a combination I really appreciate.

He's a photographer who also works with other media and artforms. And even in his photography it seem to me that the greatest part of the art and work lies in the construction of the motif. Some extremely elaborate and some snapshot-like of a simple great idea (...all great artists have a little octopus and a white bird in their studio - just in case serendipity should strike).

Here's a couple of galleries of his images... lots of fantasticness:

Lipanjepuntin

Artnet

Are you satisfied Petter?

Motel de Moka

2007-05-08T19:21:00.000+02:00

Motel de Moka seem to be an excellent music blog that I happened to wander by.

The real reason though I'm posting about this is to show you this extremely delicious bookshelf that accompanied one of their posts... Some day, somehow, I'm gonna steal this idea... so help me God...

"The design house of mike and maaike developed a wonderfully elegant and simple bookshelf for a curated series of bookshelves. Its title: "religion".

Niches for seven influential religious texts are carved out of a three-foot-long piece of hardwood and reverently cozied up to one another."

The piece is called Juxtaposed: religion is the first in a series og "Juxtaposed" bookshelves and produced in a limeted edition of 50. 2500$.

via Motel de Moka via Speaking of Faith

Abandoned Japan

2007-05-07T00:14:00.000+02:00

Teis send me a link to this..."Hashima Island (meaning "Border Island"), commonly called Gunkanjima (meaning "Battleship Island") is one among 505 uninhabited islands in the Nagasaki Prefecture about 15 kilometers from Nagasaki itself. The island was populated from 1887 to 1974 as a coal mining facility." A ghost city on a small small island. It had one of the highest population densities in the world and some of the first residential concrete buildings was erected here in 1905. It looks almost to good to be true. Photos from it's deliciously abandoned concrete buildings HERE and watch a documentary about it HERE.

It brings to mind the dead zone of Chernobyl. And then the movie Stalker - watch it if you haven't already.

It also brings to mind this abandoned Japanese amusement park. The LINK is in japanese, but the pictures are great. Also Chernobyl had one, in Pripyat - the city build to service the powerplant.

There's something particularly fascinating about the amusement parks I think - to see, empty of any life, a place that was designed to attract it. Certainly an ambigous twilight zone.... the fantastic anime movie Spirited Away takes it starting point exactly in such a place.

An extensive collection of abandoned places can be found at the Forum ov Psychick Blah. And many more from the Japanese site.

Bladerunner

2007-05-06T03:27:00.000+02:00

This picture showed up in a google image search for something else. It comes from a possibly very interesting online essay "The UNCERTAINTY OF BEING - a philisophical reading of Bladerunner". And if it's not interesting it's at least full of pretty high resolution screenshots from the movie. As Rutger Hauer says:

"If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes"

More Bladeruner quotes here

Fodgang

2007-05-06T01:41:00.000+02:00

Politiken reported the other day that Copenhagen pedestrians are in the world elite. Of the 32 cities in the survey, the pace of life project, only singaporeans are faster.

In each of these cities prof. Richard Wiseman has chosen 1 (just one?!) 20 m stretch of street and measured the average time it would take people to walk it. Copenhagen 10.82 sec. Blantyre in Malawi 31.60 sec. For 20 meters. That's pretty damn slow. Complete list HERE.

" A study carried out in the early 1990s demonstrated that pedestrians’ speed of walking provides a reliable measure of the pace of life in a city, and that people in fast-moving cities are less likely to help others and have higher rates of coronary heart disease."

Meanwhile over at Pruned the latest post is about piezoelectrical technology. Fx. as used in this shoe, BrightWalk, “that incorporates piezo-electric transducers and electroluminescent polymers to generate light while the user is walking or running.”

Pruned has several other very (more) interesting examples. Fx the wavegarden and the sustainable dancefloor... and from there the imagination of a young urban planner just goes on and on...

The original thought with this post was to say something clever about the energy potentially produced in Copenhagen and Blantyre. But now I lost it. If you have anything smart to say please enlighten me.

Instead let's look at Muybridge (not him personally) one of the fathers of looking very closely at (naked) people walking...

Superindian

2007-05-03T00:20:00.000+02:00

I think we need a song...

Superman and Spiderwoman (!?) in indian 70'ies disco inferno. Breathtaking dancemoves, action and effects.

The world is a big and strange place. Forever expanding over time... so, we move 20 years forward...

Stéphane Fugier

2007-05-01T04:05:00.000+02:00

Photos by Stephane Fugier.

Are they surreal or symbolic? I fear the answer. And since it's his birthday I'll dedicate them to my friend Jeppe. Then he can think about it. They're definately both beautiful and funny.

More excellent photos, including real women, on his site.

Map of Science

2007-04-30T23:33:00.000+02:00

Ay ay ay, it can be hard to update. Hard, hard work... but here it is... an update.

The grand MAP OF SCIENCE!!

"As to what the image depicts, it was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 scientific papers (shown as white dots) into 776 different scientific paradigms (red circular nodes) based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers." LINK to a very nice article about it.

I like it so much when dry and hard science turns out to create the most intriguingly (my favorite word on this blog) beautiful visuals. There is a certain bit of ostranenie - estrangement in it.

The reason it looks like a feather boa is that from every node runs a line of key-words. HERE you'll find a huge version where you can read the words. And HERE is the most beautiful version of it - where you can buy a rather huge print of it too.

The image was constructed by Kevin Boyack and Dick Klavans. On their site mapofscience.com you'll find a simpler interactive version of the map that describes the idea and possible uses very well.

It is not a map of science, in essence. It's a map of text. In this case from a particular database of scientific papers. And therefore 'social science' is the blue worm in the extreme left of the diagram. Political science completely absent. Economics. Law. Philosophy. Litterature, poetry, drama. Could be nice to try the same on those. A virtual mental map of humanity. Which scaled down on the screen of the computer begin to again resemble a written sign.

With these words I'll ride into the night. Celebrating first of all that I got my first paycheck today. And secondly that I work for a city that has been run by social democrats for 100 years and therefore I have the day off tomorrow. I wish you all happy international worker solidarity.

Tran Ba Vang

2007-04-26T21:45:00.000+02:00

Nicole Tran Ba Vang makes pretty fantastic images examening clothing, the skin and the (female) body. Several nice sets of photos on her site. The downside is that she doesn't actually make the clothes... which is a shame. On the other hand it has been seen before anyway. What's that Argentineans(?) name? The one with the bellybuttons- and nipples- handbags and clothing.

...now that I think about it - I should probably have more naked ladies on this blog. That always seem to be popular.

More skin then:

"... skin is the largest organ of the integumentary system ... accounting for about 15 percent of body weight."

Fleece

2007-04-26T21:00:00.001+02:00

'Fleece'
Originally uploaded by doublevelvet.Just a super nice picture from a very intriguing guy to follow on flickr - doublevelvet

GenAid.com

2007-04-26T01:34:00.001+02:00

Clones
Originally uploaded by MarcoVision / GenAid.com.

A seducing vision of a not so tempting future.

One of my all time favorite sets on flickr. They seem to be made with very simple means... but get a very convincing reality out of it.

Marco, who made these darned nice pictures, calls them GenAid... checking that out led me on to... genaid.com:

"Welcome to Genaid Corporation. We are a Cloning and Evolution Improvement clinic established in 2002, offering our expertise and products to improve .. YOU".

And they use such terms as Smart Evolution.

Not bad.

And while we're at it I'd better link back to my old post about Transhumanism... they really mean business.

Giant Steps

2007-04-24T23:58:00.000+02:00

Often, after late nights of painful work at arch.school I would go to the Christiania Jazzclub. Wednesdays and fridays. And i would sit there. And watch some guy from the music conservatory. Just blow out his art through his instrument. And i would be so jealous of the immediacy of his medium. Compared to the torturously slow process of architecture.

Here's a movie just about that. The song is 'giant steps' by John Coltrane. And the movie is made by Michal Evy. Send to me by cousin Axel. Nice.

Las Meninas

2007-04-24T21:09:00.000+02:00

Creating architecture is not about building houses. It's about imagining and representing space. Space always experienced over time. Always seen from a viewpoint.
And quite possibly occupied by human beings engaged in situations. Living through narratives. Trying to catch your gaze or their own. Negotiating their place in space. Taking it into possession.

This painting is Las Meninas, painted by Velazquez. Read a bit about the angles of mirrors , etc... here.

Dear Dubi has commented: "check out video 89 seconds at Alcazar, by Eve Sussman.
Its a tribute to Diego Valesquez's Las Meninas. really really intriguing work."

Interview with Eve Sussman

This seem to be an ongoing story... Picasso:

and even more at thee Forum ov Psychick Blah.

...My brother has now made me aware of the fact that Foucault in the 1st chapter of The Order of Things has a very thorough discussion of Las Meninas.

And you can download that very chapter as a pdf right HERE

Blue Sands

2007-04-24T00:37:00.000+02:00

The Chico Hamilton Quintet at the Newport Jazz Festival, 1958.

Chico behind the drums and everything else. Eric Dolphy on flute. Gabor Szabo on guitar and Fred Katz, I think, on cello.

Chico is the man.

Maps

2007-04-24T00:05:00.000+02:00

I have a thing for maps at the moment. More to come. This is one of the first maps that names "America". Notice that it is put together of 12 seperate sheets. I particularly enjoy southern Africa and the incredible geometrics used to unfold the globe. And even more on map projections here. Got it from Odden's Bookmarks, The fascinating world of maps and mapping

inhabitat

2007-04-18T22:51:00.000+02:00

My Serbian assistant Dubi just send me a link to a rather nice arch blog - inhabitat. Here's their mission statement (yes, they even have a mission statemen... they must mean business)...

GREEN DESIGN IS GOOD DESIGN
GOOD DESIGN IS GREEN DESIGN

Inhabitat.com is a weblog devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future

... And they are even looking for contributing writers (and add sales preffesionals - yes they do mean business). From now on you can find their link juuuust to the left. Enjoy.

Family values

2007-04-17T22:53:00.000+02:00

Do yourself a favour - read last sundays Doonesbury.

...oh, and remember to check the news, left column - this was on today:

Iran is to break new ground by setting up an architecture research center named after the renowned late Iranian architect Hadi Mirmiran.

Things are going on in the world. On and on.

Back, yet again

2007-04-17T21:56:00.000+02:00

Okidoki... heeeere weeee gooooooo.....
Back in business. With a stylish, easy to read, spanking new design. Overwhelming new functionalities. And more focused than ever. On subjects such as:

Urban Space

and

Bodies

I seriously doubt you could've thought of any subjects more exiting yourself. So lean back and enjoy a thrilling ride through such diverse places as Venice, Sundbyvester Square and the cheek of Duchamp.
Also you can now revel in the new popular functionalities, like the easy to navigate archives menu, the thematic labels (below each post), the automatic urban design news (sidebar, bottom) and the special ask a ninja video features (at the very bottom).

Finally - there's still a lot of open questions concerning the format of this... should I switch to Danish (a 50/50 mix I guess)... is the page design final (no it's not)... will anybody read this (probably only if i tell them)... and so on and so on.... so we'll see...

Long Pork

2006-04-24T20:49:00.000+02:00

I apologize for not posting lately, but my deadline, may 24, is closing in on me.

Update: for more on long pork look here

Pettttter

2006-04-16T14:41:00.000+02:00

Here's Petter doing a backflip on telemark skis...

He told me he had done it some months back when he was in France. So when he was leaving for Sweden last week I asked for some documentation... which he has now send me. How cool is he... I wonder why the landing has been cut out?!?

Bo Thomsen

2006-04-14T21:23:00.000+02:00

Jelk, an old Dutch easa giant (at least physically), wrote me a while back asking for help finding a new name for an architectural strudio, previously known as SuperNova. Well, the basic thing at stake here, and why I come into the picture, is that it should be a Nordic name (and I quote):

"Geert-Jan is jealous on the names of 'Ove Arup' and "Alvar Aalto". The new name should (even though it will be a new brand) kind of suggest a reference to the mythical virtual founder of the company."

Now, it is not an easy task to come up with a good scandiwanian name. Others have tried it with considerably limited succes like Häagen-Dazs. It doesn't sound "Nordic" at all. Not at all.

Well Geert-Jan has decided now. Bo Thomsen - a name so authentically Danish that I would never have thought of it myself. First of all Bo is a good short name, that should be pronounced with sufficient pressure and swallowed halfway through the O. Bo. Finally a -sen name. 85% of Danes have names ending on -sen. 0,0% ending on -dasz. Thank you.

Three cheers and hiphips and a short and a long one for Bo ThomsenAnd very congratulations.

For the interested reader here's a link to nordicnames.de and some recent statistics.

Parametric Rig

2006-04-13T17:32:00.000+02:00

Originally uploaded by bryanboyer.

A little entry to strenthen the more strictly architecural side of this blog. Using CINEMA 4D Bryan Boyer has made this "parametric rig to control the skeleton of my housing project this semester. ... Once I develop this a bit more it's going to be time to merge it with the earlier experiments in applying cellular geometry to a surface-- skeleton meets skin."

Here's a plan and a sketch model made of pieces of lasercut walnut wood.

Schmap

2006-04-12T16:23:00.000+02:00

I got a message in my flickr-inbox today, from something called Schmap - that they've shortlistet two photos of mine for their soon to come Copenhagen guide. It's grafitti on the fence around Christiania:

Schmap seem to be a very interesting project:

"Every Schmap Guide comes with dynamic maps, useful links, playable tours, top picks, plus photos and reviews for 100s of sights and attractions, hotels, restaurants, bars, parks, theaters, galleries, museums..."

The Copenhagen guide (and lots of others) comes out sometimes in april. I'm pretty curious to see how they're portraying my city.

The Miracle of Birth II

2006-04-11T15:22:00.000+02:00

ATTENTION
ATTENTION

Finally, FINALLY, here it is, the view we've all been anticipating in breathless anxiety, Britney from behind, with Sean Prestons lil' head squeeeezing it's way out...

Originally uploaded by slackferno.

Originally uploaded by stonecalle.

I've been thinking about it and I kind of like this to be honest. The whole piece is just too much:
- The anti-abortion message (honest or not)
- The über-celebrity Britney Spears... naked.
- On a bear skin... where did that come from?
- Giving birth (and in that process showing it all)
- In a position that makes you think of the beginning of a pregnancy, rather than the end of it.

It's so too much that it ends up being quite complex and intriguing. Yes, I kind of like it.

Canned Eyes

2006-04-10T11:22:00.000+02:00

Canned Eyes
Originally uploaded by Protection Island.

Today just a fast image... and while you're at it, do yourself a favour to check out the rest of his photo stream as well.

Cooming up soon: Britney from behind, Mcsweeney, more mr. Barney and the return of the Travel Companion - so stay tuned. And happy monday.

Games

2006-04-09T11:48:00.000+02:00

Sunday, sunday, they just keep coming. And as we know, here on Adam in the World every sunday is christmas. So rather than picking your nose or doing last weeks dishes, how about a little mathematical game or two...

Nim - an ancient game. The rules are very simple - remove as many stones/pearls/whatever from each row/heap. The player to remove the last has lost. In this flash version, Pearls Before Swine, you'll have to play the cynical gambler Juan. For a bit of game theory look here.

TactTix - is a simpler, easier, 2 dimensional version of Nim, invented by Piet Hein, a Danish scientist/thinker who are also responsible for games like Tangloids, Hex and the Soma Cube.

They're pure gymnastics for your brain and they are FREE. In other words you can't afford not to play.

Organs

2006-04-07T00:13:00.000+02:00

organs
Originally uploaded by adampadam.

Here's what I've been doing most of the day - internal organs for my travel companion. They are part of a circuit for warm water - control of the temparature of the travel companions wax skin means control of it's viscosity. And thus how it receives imprints.

The organs are first shaped in polyurethane, tubes are attached and the whole thing covered in butter. Yes, butter. Then covered in several layers of liquid latex. When the latex is dry the tubes are pulled out and acetone is injected through the openings, this disolves the polyurethane and, wupti, I have 5 nice red latex bladders.

I feel the need...

2006-04-06T14:23:00.000+02:00

No links or interesting comments in this post, for today I must make architecture with a speed yet to be seen!

Di Genova

2006-04-05T11:56:00.000+02:00

Originally uploaded by wacky doodler.

Came across these nice drawings by Nicolas Di Genova on flickr a while back. So on this grey and rainy wednesday I would recommend you to spend 15 minutes looking at his gorgeously detailed drawings - Either on his own website mediumphobic or in this photo set on flickr.

As an extra bonus here's a picture of the moons shadow on northerne Africa during the eclipse last week - via RobotWisdom.

Happy wednesday.

Sushi of Love

2006-04-04T11:45:00.000+02:00

I went an saw "Drawing Restraint 9" yesterday, the latest movie by Mathew Barney, also starring his wife Björk and the entire crew of a Japanese whaling factory ship... Didn't see any of his "Cremaster" movies, but this was mind blowing... right from the beginning: You see some kind of stone up close, while the camera slowly zooms out, you see that it is an eye of a statue or something. As it zooms out further, you realise it can't be an eye - it's just something lying on a table... but just when you realise it can't be an eye, it sheds a tear...

Here Matthew and Björk are cutting each other into sushi of love and so transforming themselves into whales?!? Or something... :

Tennis

2006-04-03T15:28:00.000+02:00

progression 2
Originally uploaded by Presley*.

This picture is from a quite wonderful photoset - a sequence - by Presley*. Showing the decay of tennisballs over time... who would have thought they could look so nice...

They remind me of this picture, of what is possibly the worlds oldest map, a cylcon (conical-cylindrical stone) from Australia, 20-30.000 bc, and perhaps depicting the river Darling and tributaries:

Could Presley's decayed tennisballs be read in a similar way. As maps of the time and place passed, of the space which has marked them over time...

.

Happy Fluxus Sunday

2006-04-02T04:43:00.000+02:00

In case you should choose to spend a grey and rainy spring sunday at home watching movies... enjoying your snack of choice... In that case allow me to direct you to UbuWeb, their film section in general and their spanking new collection of 37 Short Fluxus Films(1962-1970) in particular.

"... 37 short films ranging from 10 seconds to 10 minutes in length. These films (some of which were meant to be screened as continuous loops) were shown as part of the events and happenings of the New York avant-garde. Made by the artists listed above, they celebrate the ephemeral humor of the Fluxus movement.Films by Nam June Paik, Dick Higgins, George Maciunas, Chieko Shiomi, John Cavanaugh, James Riddle, Yoko Ono, George Brecht, Robert Watts, Pieter Vanderbiek, Joe Jones, Eric Anderson, Jeff Perkins, Wolf Vostell, Albert Fine, George Landow, Paul Sharits, John Cale, Peter Kennedy, Mike Parr, Ben Vautier."

It's free and it's legal. So start downloading right now. Sundays of entertainment.

On AdamintheWorld.blgspt.com every sunday is christmas.

Conspiracy

2006-03-31T15:18:00.000+02:00

Today I saw the movie 9/11 revisited. It supports the claims that the official explanation of the collapse of the towers are completely inadequate. And it hints at implications of the more (only?!) plausible explanation. Watch it. It's seems interesting and relevant... but also to good/bad to be true. Certainly not boring.

LINK

I, on the other hand have my own theory... dug out of an old Donald Duck magazine... how couold they have known, years before. Disney? Well, he's conveniently dead... to good/bad to be true you say....hmmmm...

UPDATE!!

An anonymous (...hmmm .... yes - I am suspicious too... ) comment to this post has revealed this picture:

Coincidence? I don't think so! This smells of... something....

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Svæv

2006-03-31T13:56:00.000+02:00

Danish online poetry magazine Afsnit P have today opened the online exhibition Svevedikt (floatpoem) by Norwegian poet Ottar Ormstadt. Obviously most fun if you can read scandiwanian of some kind... but still... it's very visual poetry...

LINK

Tactile Balls

2006-03-30T10:27:00.000+02:00

Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking ... and I'm thinking it too. But to begin with all I'm talking about is this project:

Distance tactile ball - 2 tracking balls connected via radio tranceivers, push one and the other one repeats the movement in realtime. Enabling people to do longdistance physical communication.
I'm sure this is technically difficult to achieve for one lonesome design student. But it's not really interesting either, too banal imho, not getting to the core of things.

Here's another attempt - connected by mobile phones, through these devices a grandmother in Chicago can hug her grandchild in Alaska.

Slightly more advanced... but still... (not to mention the fact that this concept should make sense to both a 75 and a 2 year old). And it's even thought up by people at MIT.

Then where is the real things happening? I'll tell you: In the field known by the technical term "Dildonics". From a reliable source I've been told that the only people doing serious non-commercial research in this are, surprise, the Germans. But I'm sure that is nothing compared to what the porn industry is pushing into it.... unfortunately, with their limited imagination, they don't seem to have gotten much further than this:

But don't despair - Dildonics has got it's future in front of it. Domain name phishing is happening and the opensource community is on to it as well. Just wait. The future is coming. I'm sure. And I'll be there, waiting, to use their filthy technology for something that really matters (yes, the rumors are true - there are other things in life than sex).

Kowloon Walled City II

2006-03-30T09:46:00.000+02:00

I've written about this place before before and it deserves an update.

On the forum of the SkyscraperPage, there is a thread which I belive must be the biggest collection of info and pictures of Kowloon Walled city on the net.

LINK

Shelter

2006-03-29T15:51:00.000+02:00

From the Shelter Series by Anthony Goicolea.

"The composed wooded scenes depicted in many of the photos are bisected into two halves and are often times seen as a cross-section of themselves." ... hmmm, interesting...

via (I think, but it's old): pruned

Miracle of Birth

2006-03-28T19:31:00.000+02:00

Full title of this sculpture: Monument to Pro-Life: The birth of Sean Preston... so, to get all this straight - This is a sculpture of Britney spears giving birth on a bear rug... and it's not a joke, but a serious pro-life, anti abortion, statement... wow... by artist Daniel Edwards.

Read all about it! ...(and more pictures too)

Via Beautiful Destruction

...ok, I'll go and do something sensible now...hmmm....

UPDATE: After having been brought to the worlds attention here on Adam in the World, the more mainstream media have now picked up the story... fx BBC and CNN .... BUT does this mean that what we've all been waiting for might soon appear - the picture from BEHIND!??

Flowers II

2006-03-28T12:49:00.000+02:00

A modest flower for a very simple girl soon...
Originally uploaded by thiooof.

What a body! Whish I could make mechanics as complex and beautiful as this. Pic taken by Thioof - I've shown a bit of his stuff before.

La Famiglia Anandamide

2006-03-27T16:19:00.000+02:00

My uncle H. Pigeon in a tOpical moment...
Originally uploaded by Anandamide.

A family album of a most unusual family. Fx. Anandamide's great great grandfather was one of the police officers responsible for the arrest of Pinnochio.

And don't miss his drawings either.

Sound Doctor

2006-03-26T23:08:00.000+02:00

Swarm - a sound installation by Dr. Nigel Helyer. He seem to be making a whole lot of very delicious projects.

Oh, and I've put up a new link too - to fabulist, another one of them blogs that gathers all the best finds of the net... just like mine ... I've found a few interesting things there.

Aaand I'm doing my final project at the moment. An extra bit of excitement in an otherwise dull and grey period. Got some stuff from that on flickr

Spook

2005-10-29T15:21:00.000+02:00

If reading the post below is to much for you, here's something more suited to your weekend hangovers, a nice little hartbreaking movie about a ghost girl who finds a teddy bear: Spook

Via Wurzeltod

And here's just another little, but hilarious, one from the filmschool in Vancouver: Jameel

Enjoy.

More Eggs - Now Bigger

2005-10-29T14:13:00.000+02:00

In between reading all I can find about situationists, I do take a little time to actually work on my project. This is a sneakpreview of my Travel Companion™. So far it's a plaster "egg", the size of a small dog. On the basis of this I'm gonna make it as a shell of wax, the same basic principle as THIS.
It's to be carried along on a route through the city, registering this walk, this route, in the deformations and imprints it'll get by the way it's carried and the surfaces it's pressed against. Where my first attempt created frozen moments, this one should be better suited at recording the actual movement over time.

Any questions (i doubt it - this all makes so perfect sense)?